Reckless Endangerment

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  FIFTEEN

  Despite a good deal of history tending to the contrary, the United States of America remains a union of sovereign states, to the extent that an official of the executive branch of the federal government cannot give orders that an official of one of the several states is obliged to obey; nor can he fire said state official or have him shipped off to an unpleasant place. Foreigners (and not a few federal officials) often do not understand this, but Karp understood it very well, and appreciated, not for the first time, how well little Jemmy Madison had wrought. Therefore, he was not overly impressed with the aggressive mien of Carl J. Anderson, the special agent in charge of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “And you didn’t think to report this … this ‘interview’ with a terrorist leader?” asked Anderson, his voice heavy with contempt.

  “I did report it,” answered Karp mildly. “I reported it to the district attorney.”

  “Oh? And what action did he take?”

  “None to my knowledge,” Karp said, and added, “None was required, Mr. Anderson. Membership, claimed or real, in the Palestine Liberation Organization is not a crime in the state of New York. We had no evidence that this person or anyone associated with him had committed any crime within our jurisdiction.”

  “How did you know that? Because the guy said so?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I believed what he said.”

  Anderson literally threw up his hands, riffling the papers before him. He looked around the table at the others, soliciting acknowledgment of the insane stupidity this last statement of Karp’s represented, and he got some nods, from the other FBI people there, of course, but also from Ed Kirby, the Brooklyn district attorney and from Chief Inspector Kevin X. Battle.

  “On what basis, pray tell?” Anderson asked, gently mocking as to an idiot child.

  Karp replied, in the same neutral tone, “On the basis of fourteen years’ experience distinguishing truth from bullshit. It’s what I do, Mr. Anderson.”

  Anderson had the sort of eyes usually referred to as steely blue, and these he locked on Karp’s eyes, which were non-metallic gray-yellow, but could be just as hard, and held the stare for what seemed like endless seconds, until it passed the borders of silly, and the person who might have been considered the senior person in the room, Thomas Colombo, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, cleared his throat and said, “Let’s move on, people.”

  Karp was ignored for the moment as everyone looked at Colombo, a bony, hawk-faced gentleman of precise habits and diction, a brilliant prosecuting attorney, and ambitious as Satan. He looked without sympathy upon SAIC Anderson and said firmly, “This transient PLO man seems to be neither here nor there. The name I keep hearing is Abdel Hussein Khalid, a.k.a. Chouza Khalid. He actually seems to be a legal resident alien, and in the city at this time. Has anyone talked to him?”

  No one had, but both the NYPD and the FBI had well-rehearsed excuses why not. They had, of course, searched for him since yesterday’s horrific events, but had come up empty. The man had vanished. Karp ignored this blather, sat back, and looked around the room. This was located in the FBI command center at 26 Federal Plaza, and it was even more generously appointed than the analogous room at One Police Plaza in which Chief Battle had lately palmed the Arab terrorist menace off on a detective lieutenant and a corporal’s guard of cops—shit-canned it, in fact, and didn’t he regret it now? Karp thought Chief Battle looked bad; his pink had gone gray, and he seemed to have shrunk a little, especially compared to the police commissioner himself, who was sitting next to him, deep in a dull rage. P.C. Bill Mallory was a very big and very smart Irishman who had devoted his stint as P.C. mainly toward technical modernization and management improvements, both of which the NYPD badly needed, of course, but which did not seem relevant to the present crisis. The NYPD had never lost seven officers in a single day, not even during the New York draft riots of 1863, when most of Manhattan was ablaze for a week, not during the race riots of the sixties—never. Seven LOD deaths was a bad year for the NYPD. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to the Department, and someone was going to get the worst punishment the Department had ever meted out.

  Karp thought he knew who that someone was. Down at the end of the table, several seats away from the others, at the back of the bus, was Detective Lieutenant Clay Fulton. Karp could not imagine why Fulton had been ordered to attend, except as Battle’s public sacrificial lamb. Fulton had his head down over one of the legal pads the federal government had supplied at each place (together with two sharpened yellow pencils), and he also had his own steno pad open on the table. He had been scratching away since the beginning of the meeting. Karp suspected that he was calculating his pension should he be forced to take early retirement commencing tomorrow.

  Karp felt bad about this, and resented Kevin Battle on behalf of his friend, but he also could not help feeling at least some fellow bureaucratic sympathy for the poor schmuck, whose famous ass covering must feel like tin foil now, like Saran Wrap. He moved his gaze past Battle to Ed Kirby. The Brooklyn D.A. was a short, stocky man with a flat, unattractive, pugnacious Irish face and the slightly bulbous, dark, wide-set eyes of a Boston bull terrier. Like that breed, he had a tendency to snap, and a barky high-pitched voice. He met Karp’s glance, scowled, and looked away. In the shuffle before the start of the meeting he had expressed surprise and disappointment that a mere representative rather than his fellow D.A., John Keegan, had shown. Karp had not repeated the remark of that official when he had directed Karp to attend in his stead (It’s fucking Brooklyn: you go!) but had made a transparent excuse and then listened while Kirby whined about the Hasidim. No Bushwick Irishman could hope to be elected and reelected Brooklyn D.A. without the support of the Jews, but these particular Jews were not being helpful. Within an hour of the catastrophe the agents of Hasidic burial societies had seized the corpses, loaded them onto stretchers, and carried them off, despite the efforts of the police to protect the crime scenes.

  They were gone, to be interred (as required by Talmudic law) within twenty-four hours and no autopsies either, so Kirby had, in principle, over twenty homicides for which he did not have a legal corpus delicti. He could (also in principle) get a judge to write exhumation orders for each of these. The chance that a Brooklyn judge, an elected judge, would sign such orders and dig up twenty-odd dead Hasidim—it was to laugh! No, the perps in this one—when found—would be nailed for first-degree murder, for the seven cop killings. The Jews would have to be satisfied to come along for the ride. It would be far and away the biggest trial of Kirby’s career, and the reason he was here was that he did not want anything, however tiny, to screw up the investigation.

  The investigation! A stir moved around the table, like an unexpected breeze on a sultry day. The attendees were being informed that, remarkably, an investigation of Arab terrorism was already under way, under NYPD auspices. Mallory said this because Battle had informed him that such an investigation did exist, although he had been vague about its structure and progress, and Mallory had carried that message to the press on the evening of what everyone was already calling Black Tuesday. “A major investigation under way, sir,” Battle had said, hoping that the big boys would take this statement on faith so that the word would not leak out that the NYPD had been caught, so to speak, flat-footed, and then the worker bees could come up with something that he could feed to Mallory, who could feed it to the TV jackals at the press conference he had scheduled for noon.

  But Anderson said, “I didn’t know you had anything going on terrorism, Commissioner. Do you mean Dick Bailey’s operation?”

  The other FBI suits around the table barely concealed their smiles. They knew Bailey. That dim bulb had not even been invited. Mallory turned an inquiring eye to Battle.

  “Kevin?”

  Battle was already shaking his head in denial. “No sir, no, not at all, this is a special investigation, a major inves
tigation. Um.”

  A delicate silence followed, at which point Clay Fulton stood up, cleared his throat, a sound like the rattle of musketry, and said, “Chief? If I may. I could summarize the facts and figures in a few minutes.”

  If Battle was surprised, he did not show it. With a magisterial wave he bade Fulton proceed.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Fulton. “Briefly, on Friday last, a women’s shelter in Manhattan was subjected to a well-planned, well-executed raid by Arabs carrying automatic weapons, during which an Arab girl was kidnapped. This girl came from a family involved in pro-Palestinian political violence. When put together with information arising out of the Shilkes killing and other crimes, together with the interview Mr. Karp has already mentioned, it strongly suggested that an Arab terrorist group was operating in New York. We brought this evidence to Chief Battle, and he, of course, took it very seriously indeed, tasking me to plan a major investigation, involving over seventy-five detectives, over fifty support personnel, two hundred and fifty uniformed officers, unlimited overtime, rental space for the unit, et cetera, reporting to Inspector Patrick Timmons, in the Office of the Chief of Detectives, and with myself as executive officer. Naturally, the unit is still organizing itself, but we’ve already made significant progress.”

  He took a breath. Battle was staring at him, as a drowning man might stare at a cork ring. Fulton resumed. “First, we have a photograph of Abdel Hussein Khalid, sent from Interpol. The French have been after him for years for arms and drug smuggling. Using this photo we’ve positively identified Khalid as one of two men driving the wrecker involved in the chase in which officers Graves and Echeverria were killed. Civilians observed them escaping the area pushing an oil drum on a hand truck. By now every RMP, detective, and foot patrol in the city has that photograph. Second, we have confirmation from the owner of a brake shop on Atlantic Avenue that Khalid was the man who arranged to rent his garage for yesterday evening, with the story that he was setting up a dog fight. The garage was clearly the origin of yesterday’s events. There was a gun battle between two factions, and two rockets were used. One man was killed. The shell casings found at this scene had communist-bloc military stock markings identical to the ones fired at Officers Graves and Echeverria, and also identical to ones fired during the kidnapping at the shelter. Third, we’ve located the firm Khalid bought into when he entered the country. It’s a legitimate import-export firm, but the owner, a Mr. Hashim Moulari, explained that Khalid does a lot of independent importing on his own. We’re checking their records now, and of course we’ll apply for the usual taps and mail covers, at the firm and at the mail drops Khalid uses. Some interesting things about Khalid. According to available records, he doesn’t have a phone, doesn’t own a car, has no bank accounts, doesn’t have a driver’s license or a Social Security number, and the only address Moulari had for him was one of the mail drops. A very, very careful man.”

  Fulton spoke briskly for another ten minutes, mainly on organizational details, and then threw it open for questions.

  The first one was from Anderson. “Lieutenant, didn’t you think to inform the Bureau about this operation?”

  Fulton smiled. “But we did, sir. It’s department policy that all liaison with the FBI go through BSSI. Dick Bailey went through his contact and was informed that there was no Arab terrorist organization in New York. So …”

  So, indeed. Into the silence that followed this the police commissioner put in a dab of political balm, assuring Anderson that the NYPD would continue to work closely with the FBI and that, of course, nothing could replace the expertise and experience of the Bureau in tracking down evildoers of foreign origin. Color had come back into Chief Battle’s face. Owing a big one to this fancy shine was well worth it, given the disaster thus averted.

  The meeting broke up soon thereafter, with many more expressions of goodwill and promises of full cooperation. In the elevator lobby, after the P.C. had sped off to meet with his press people, Battle gripped Fulton’s arm and held him in what appeared to be a most earnest conversation. Their heads were almost touching. The car came, they descended in silence, and then Battle was scooped up by his driver and bodyguard and vanished, leaving Fulton and Karp alone on Federal Plaza, under a long, ugly steel wall sculpture. They watched it rust for a moment, and then Karp looked at his friend and touched his own nose, after which he brought his pinched fingers slowly about a foot distant. Fulton laughed.

  Karp said, “You keep that up, boss, you’re not ever going to be a real boy.”

  “I resent the implication I lied to that august group of public officials.”

  “Seventy-five detectives … ?”

  “Chief Battle has on his desk the administrative order authorizing a task group of the size I described, dated yesterday. I expect he’ll be happy to sign it when he returns to his office. You saw him talking to me. He didn’t say one word about this not all being his idea, and he never will. History has been changed, my friend, just like Russia.”

  “What about Timmons? He wasn’t even at the meeting yesterday.”

  “Oh, Timmons! Timmons is cool too. Pat Timmons and me, we go way back. He was in the bag at the Three-Oh, the year I got my gold tin, another, as we say, paddy motherfucker, dropped in amongst the Negroes to dispense law and order. Pat was a little sharper than most, no, be fair, a lot sharper. He made detective in record time. Not that I helped much, him having the kind of rabbis he had downtown, but I did him some favors. When this shit broke, I called him and told him what the situation was and what I thought needed doing, and he said go ahead and work it out and him and the Chief of D would back me all the way. So I did.”

  Karp looked at him in amazement. “Jesus, Clay! It hasn’t been twelve hours since Brooklyn blew up. How the hell did you get all that done?”

  Fulton chuckled and rubbed his face as if he had a thick towel in his hands. Karp looked at him closely and saw how tired the man was. Clearly he had been up all night.

  “Yeah, well, as to that,” Fulton said, “I started on it as soon as you got me into this. I figured if there was a terrorist group, and they did something major, we’d need a task force like this. If there wasn’t, well … compared to working homicide, working for you all, I got plenty of time.”

  “And that other stuff, about Khalid and Interpol—that’s legit too?”

  Fulton waggled his hand from side to side. “There I indulged in a somewhat jive version of the truth. We do have a snap of the scumbag, but it’s not a mug shot. It’s a surveillance photograph, grainy as hell. Not that great for ID, but at least we know he’s not a bald midget. The brake-shop guy didn’t see Khalid, but we got him working up an Identikit sketch of the guy he did see. We’ll have that out by noon. As far as the getaway went, yeah, some people did see a couple of guys with a barrel, but we don’t have a positive ID yet. In fact, the whole canvass is a disaster. The block is all Satmar Hasidim. The men won’t talk to P.W.’s, and they won’t let the women talk to male officers. Needless to say, we are not going through this particular neighborhood in the kind of balls-to-the-wall shit storm like we would’ve if this’d happened uptown. And don’t think I’m not bitter.”

  “In that case, I apologize to you on behalf of the Jewish people and the entire white race,” said Karp. “Meanwhile, how the fuck did this happen? And for that matter, what did happen? I’m still unclear.”

  “Okay, let’s walk,” said Fulton. “I got to get to One Police to meet with Timmons and then over to Brooklyn to review my legions.”

  “There won’t be any problem with that, I presume. Resources—”

  “You got to be kidding. The sky’s the limit on this one, Stretch. I’ll need four people just to handle the calls from guys volunteering their off-duty time. These fuckers are doomed.”

  They walked across Foley Square, a broad, unattractive plaza that, since it was home to the criminal, civil, and federal courthouses, contained more lawyers working at their trade than any other in the City, and
thus in all probability was accursed of God. It was swept by freakish Canadian winds in the winter and baked like Chad in the summer; today it was raw, with a light chilling rain.

  Fulton said, “Here’s how I see it playing. Khalid and company rent a garage for the night. Why? Obviously to set up a meeting, a meeting with a guy or group they don’t trust or who doesn’t trust them; otherwise they’d go to a bar, or where they lived. The meet comes off, but one of the parties does a double-cross, and a firefight breaks out. The other group’s got rockets, so Khalid and his people book. One escapes on foot, after shooting off about a hundred rounds of nine mil. One dies in a car. And Khalid and another guy take off in the garage tow truck. The other party, number and composition unknown, disperses on foot, because the car they came in is totaled. But one of these characters wanders out onto Atlantic and steals a black 1979 Chrysler New Yorker from a tile salesman on his way home to Bensonhurst. We got him on an Identikit too—a young kid, thin, good-looking …”

  “An Arab?” asked Karp.

  “Probably. They didn’t converse much. The kid had a duffel bag on him, and he’s the source of the grenades and the rocket that did all the damage. We would really like to catch this particular scumbag.”

  “He just walked away after he blew up the ESU van?”

  “Just walked away. You got to understand the kind of shit that was going down on that street after the van went up. There were bullets cooking off, shotgun shells, slugs and pellets flying off buildings, concussion grenades exploding, plus the gas. If he’d’ve been King Kong nobody would’ve noticed him, and the cops back on Rutledge Street were blocked by a wall of flames and gas. Why did you ask if he was an Arab? What else could he have been?”